Casual players like me

1. I disagree with you, of course a game is designed to entertain, but a game cant be boring and entertaining at the same time. If you don't win a game with strategy knowledge and skill, it shouldnt be called an entertaining RTS.

2. I find his arguments interresting and i wont say "nobody asked for it". It is constructive critisism.

3. Of course most AAA games are getting more and more dump. There are some exeptions(more in Indie Games), but if you look at CoD or Battlefield.....(also many RPGs e.g. Diabolo 3)

Competitive games start as fun games. The simple fact is that people keep playing for fun! The competitive style emerges naturally, as players get better and demand tougher opponents to stay engaged.

In order to be competitive, the UI needs to be crisp and efficient as players become increasingly fast. Units need to be intelligent and obey the orders they're given. Bugs are inexcusable, and performance issues create an uneven field of battle. Good game balance is paramount(with complex counters more engaging than RPS stuff), and starting the conflict as early as possible keeps players fighting as skill levels escalate.

Basically, the competitive nature of a game depends on having good, solid fundamentals under the hood. Problems that cause players to leave are the #1 killer of competition.

In my opinion, competitive play MAKES the game fun(longterm).

Guys, this topic is about accommodating casual/low level players. The competitive game talk is another thread.

If the multiplayer client is as good as FAF's the more casual players won't ever have to get stomped. They'll get ranked so they only have to people around their level until they gradually improve. If they aren't interested in improving and just want to have 'fun' they can play turtle maps with build times and 2x resources or whatever. Maybe Survival maps against the AI.

You've got your chicken and eggs mixed up, bro. The secret ingredient is love.

I actually read this thread from a completely different perspective. Games are about having fun, and the casual gamer is the player that doesn't have the time or inclination to spend hours improving and then more hours maintaining his skill set simply so that he can have fun.

However, I believe the answer is not to make 1v1 ranked games easier, but rather, figure out a way to make alternative multiplayer options more visible and attractive for players. Give the player who wants to have a 'fun' online experience the avenues he needs to do so.

Once that player wants to step through the portal into 'professional' play (to use a sports analogy), why don't we have a setup of volunteers to tutor those players? Dawn of War II had a successful tutoring program on GameReplays.com (IIRC), and it can take just one or two games of useful pointers from a 'pro' to get the noob on the right track.

If PA included a 'tutor' gameplay mode it could really encourage the community to work and stick together for a long time. Give the tutor complete control of the battlefield (reverse time, spawn units, see where the other player is looking, restart the map) and then also give the student a way to rate the tutor (to prevent abuse).

I think this is a real problem. I also sense a degree of general distaste in response to the OP that I cannot say I share. I think it was a good post. Furthermore, it tackles a genuine concern of mine. I know this post is long so I appreciate those of you with the patience to read through it doing so.

While it is fully appropriate to tend to the needs of the above average players when designing a game, it is also important to make sure that the average and below average players are also catered for as these are the bulk of the people who will be buying the game. We also need to cater for people who are new to the genre. Ignoring these people is a guaranteed way of putting people off the online section of the game (therefore shortening the life of the game) and denying yourself revenue as a developer. One of the biggest turn-offs for anyone playing any game is to be beaten (mercilessly) by an opponent of far greater skill and have no way of knowing what they did wrong.

In order to keep the lobbies populated (and the money coming in for Uber) we need to pay attention to what people like dallonf are saying. This keeps the game alive and brings new blood to the lobbies - which is never a bad thing. What the OP is asking for is not unreasonable: Essentially he just wants to be matched with equals and to have clear distinctions of what units are effective against others.

Re: matchmaking. I'm not going to make any suggestions as to how it should be done, I'm just going to highlight the issue as a matter of concern and hope that Uber will implement something elegant that suits everyone. What I don't want to see is the situation where noobs/low skill players are excluded from online play because all lobbies are populated by experienced players. The issue then is who do you match a noob up against when there are no other noobs? That doesn't help anyone and it's not a very noob-friendly environment. So how do we prevent that from happening? Like it or not, we were all noobs once. My point being these people need to be catered for too and those who refer to themselves as casual gamers have just as much right to enjoy playing online as those at the top of the ladder.

As an aside, perhaps we should be talking about what kind of games the OP has been playing. It sounds like mostly 1v1 and my assumption in that case would be ranked matches. While these are good in respect that you should be paired against an opponent of similar skill (see above paragraph for the possible issue with this), they are ranked and therefore not an ideal learning environment. I would suggest having a go at the following:

The first games I played when I started were unranked 2v2's. And while we aren't all lucky enough to get one-to-one tuition. 2v2's are an excellent way to learn the ropes simply by watching what your team mate is doing and following suit. These games are a gold mine for those who have their eyes open and by playing unranked matches you are also much less likely to encounter the sort who will become angry because they have "the useless noob" on their team who just lost them the game. I never played TA online so when it came to SupCom I found the difference between what I was used to (skirmish) and PvP vast to say the least. It's a steep learning curve and a lot can be learned by observing and imitating.

Another way to learn is watching replays. I'm sorry OP, but if you can't be bothered to see how your enemy defeated you then why should you expect to win matches? If you don't assess your performance post game then you will likely continue to make the same mistakes in every game you play. The difference with replays is that post game you have all the time you in the world to observe things like build order, unit combinations and groupings, timing and choice of upgrades and so on... All at your own pace. You will also begin to see trends developing across replays - things that aren't obvious to noobs but are common knowledge amongst the more experienced players. For example; the widely accepted SupCom initial build order, will soon become apparent.

I agree with the OP on the need to clarify certain aspects of the game. I think some things were taken for granted when the SupCom UI was designed. For instance, why does the resource bar flash when it's empty but not when storage is full? Surely wasted resource is just as important a reason for a visual cue as having none? Experienced players know wasting mass is a no no, to new players full storage might seem like a positive thing.

The unit descriptions aren't that newbie friendly in SupCom either. The description "T2 gunship" doesn't really tell me much about the unit. What about a simple display of strengths and weaknesses to tell me it's strong against land units but weak against interceptors? What about the various types of AA - why can't it say one has AOE and one doesn't? It's an important piece of information that isn't obvious and I'm with the OP on this one - we shouldn't have to trawl a database for this info. It should be easily available. The basic elements of the game and it's units shouldn't be an enigma - only mastering them should prove a challenge.

You, sir, are a voice of reason.

I'd just like to add as an aside that there's an UI mod for SupCom (GAZ UI, I think) which causes the metal bar to flash if its filling up too quickly.

It is a considerable issue, TA style RTS games were quite unkind to casual users. The system was not that intuitive (Not easy to recognize) and the tutorial were just the most abysmal. (It was same in Supcom 2). The Uber do not need to make the game easier, but they must make the game easier to access by new players via good tutorial or more in-game guide.

StarCraft 2 is very complicate game to play but it has everything for whom want to improve the skill.

Correct. Some people are more entrtained by ooh look at the pretty explosions and couldn't give a flying fig of the result of the game as long as they get to do stuff. Whether this comes through making it easy to understand why they can't do stuff or just placing them with other people who don't care much about winning is a good question and one that is up for debate.

The problem is, and i've looked at a lot of similar arguments, that it boils down to the fallacious argument of "things are getting worse as time goes on, and everyone should like playing games the way I do". Yes, strategy games should be deep. Yes, strategy games can also offer appeal to casual players at the same time. Yes, i'm sure someone wants PA to cater to casuals. No, no one was entertaining that idea seriously.

This feels like complaining about how the movie industry is going down the tubes because they aren't producing stuff like "the good old days". News flash: tons of good movies are still being made. The biggest selling stuff is going to be what appeals to the most people, not sure why that's a problem. I can quite easily list a couple of dozen indie/niche/smaller games that did reasonably well and are very good games in their own right as evidence good games are still made, so I don't really see the point in complaining that "lowest common denominator material was made for the lowest common denominator".


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Wolfdogg on the last page has a great summary though. +1

Either a build in Unit browser(with weeknesses, strengthes, or counters) or an build in Internet Browser with links to official website, with detailed unit informations can help new players to learn the game(like in Starcraft at the "help" menu + Liquipedia).

Heads up: I've rewritten the entire OP. This new version makes pretty much the same points, but has much more clear logical progression and is more delicately worded, being less demanding.

Dallonf, it is mathematically impossible for everyone to have a 70-30 win/loss ratio. There are exactly as many wins as losses, period. The fact that you haven't realized that your opponent is also a human being playing the game who wants to win is quite shocking. You wanting to win more means you want everyone else to lose more, and the only way to do that is to play better than those other people. Every time you lose, your opponent won because they played better than you.

Saying you need a 70-30 win/loss ratio for the game to be fun is the equivalent of saying you really need a spaceship in order to enjoy life, and that the government should build you a spaceship. It may be theoretically possible, but it's such a ridiculous proposition at everyone else's expense that it is entirely not worth considering.

"How did he get such a huge army" --> means your macro is inferior to your opponent's. All you need to do is build more economy. Especially in an unlimited exponential economy like TA, and PA, going for the bigger economy is an obvious strategy that can and should win you the game if it works.

"Why is my army dying" --> Rock-paper-scissors gameplay is itself a product of casualization precisely because RPS is extremely simple, while large-scale military operations are highly complex. In my opinion express RPS unit counters is one of the worst innovations of modern RTS games which I hope PA avoids. However in general, armies die when larger or superior forces, or more efficient or better-used forces shoot at them.

"When did that happen" --> This means you have poor map awareness. Knowing what is going on is a critical part of RTS games, and should be obvious. If something happens that you were completely unaware of, you are just as surprised as if you were ambushed in a real war. Better map awareness, better scouting, and just paying attention to your minimap or other information on the screen will solve this problem.

All of your "criticisms" of RTS games being difficult essentially boil down to being a weak player. In order to improve, you need to learn to manage your economy efficiently, pay attention to the map, and how to fight. It's a war game- it should come as no surprise that you have to fight a war when playing it. And if you are not willing to change your play, not willing to improve, or not interested in spending some time learning, experimenting, changing, and improving, then it should come as no surprise that you lose to players who are.

70%+ is definitely not something a casual player aims for.
Your idea of what type of player you are is wrong. You really are a competitive player who just wants the game to be better at teaching people. That's a valid and good point, but you really should rethink the view you have of yourself.

I think you're partially right. I'm a player that really wants to be casual, but has been forced into being competitive just to stand a chance.

I think I should rephrase the 70-30 thing... it's not the numbers that are important, it's the principle that you win more often than you lose. And like I said, that happens naturally when you're getting better.

And @ledarsi... I quite honestly have no idea what you're on about. You seem to have the impression that I don't want to learn how to play. Yes, all of the frustrations I've described are a direct result of being a weak player, and you described some of the mistakes that newbies make (in a rather insulting manner, I might add).

It's a known fact to everyone that these mistakes are the cause of newbies losing - everyone except the newbies, of course, if the game is not designed properly. And that's the principle I'm trying to push: while players must to be willing to learn, the responsibility of teaching is on the game interface and mechanics. And the only people who should be offended by that idea are game designers, who now have a much harder job - but will gain many more fans by doing it right.

Winning more than losing all the time is what is impossible for everybody. Doesnt matter if it is 70 or 60 or 55.

It's perfectly understandable that someone wants to play a good game and then win at the end. It's called a comp stomp, and it's a great way to kill an evening. Sorian is working hard on making an effective and engaging AI that you can kill over and over again. Try out the Sorian AI from Forged Alliance to see his last example.

Winning has to be earned against other players. They want it just as badly as you, and there's no guarantee of victory. I myself have had a huge amount of anxiety when playing against people, partly because of that uncertainty but more due to a fear of choking.

I apologize if you took my previous post as insulting- there really isn't a nice way to say that a player really should be responsible for their outcomes in a strategy game, especially when they lose frequently. Especially when players are struggling with very basic RTS abilities like growing an economy or map awareness, there really isn't much to say apart from "you really need to learn how to do that."

While I agree that helping players learn how to build buildings, and informing them what symbols on the minimap mean, how to manage their income, etc. is important, I hardly think that previous RTS games failed in this capacity. Basic mechanics simply have to be learned.

In my experience, it is actually incorrect that players improve 'constantly' as you describe. Actual skill progression proceeds in a series of many lengthy plateaus, with occasional periods of rapid improvement before arriving at a new plateau. Those periods of rapid improvement result when the player has grasped a new concept, learned to execute something they couldn't do before, or something has clicked that wasn't there before. At higher levels it may be the discovery of a new timing or trick, or new optimization of a build or other technique.

Even if you did improve constantly, your win ratio isn't going to be above 50%. The only way to actually get above 50% in the long run is to be better than literally everyone else. So much so that you have better than even odds against everyone in the entire player base. Which only the very best of the best will ever manage.

Once we're past the basic mechanics, however, it becomes much harder to tell players what they "should" do.

Strategic principles are non-obvious by their very nature. Newer players tend not to realize how important economy is- they tend to focus on the things that actually do damage, or otherwise produce obvious benefits. Newer players may not understand influence or map control, or other strategic concepts.

The issue here is that these are strategic choices which are actually not bad per se, because a very strong player might deliberately design their style around not building lots of economy, or downplaying map control, etc. A very aggressive raiding style that doesn't build a lot of economy can also work, as can a focused rush to an expensive, higher-tech asset. Newer players aren't really executing a focused nuke rush, or doing it very well, but strategically speaking that may be a perfectly valid choice, depending on a huge variety of different factors, including player personal choice and style.

The problem here is that strategic considerations are fundamentally non-obvious. And making them obvious, such as by designing a game with intentionally ideal absolutes like "always build economy" and then communicating this to the player actually simplifies and shrinks the game, and reduces depth. It is actually not true that economy is always the most important thing, even in TA. An early rush or timing push can win you the game as well. And if we were to design the game to remove this factor and then tell the player "always build economy" then the game is no longer as deep as it was.

The kind of strategic help you want to give players is exactly the kind of decision-making that is supposed to be complex in an RTS game. Making it simple and communicating it to the player is a bad solution. You will just have to learn through experience. Sometimes X is good, sometimes Y is good. Often, A is good, unless B is the case, in which case C is probably better, unless D. Sometimes a lot of players think X is the right thing to do, and they might even be wrong, and doing Z is actually very good.

Strategic decisions like how much economy to build are huge, interesting, difficult problems. An especially aggressive, defensive, specialized, or other player might very reasonably choose not to build as much economy, and in a sense the person who just doesn't understand the importance of economy is impersonating these players.

This is entirely possible and even likely with the system Uber are using for their UI.

I definitely agree with what you're saying here. It's down to players to put the time in to improve their game and only the player himself can influence the outcome of a match. What isn't apparent to newbies is all the background work that goes into successfully winning a match up. This was echoed in the OP.

The way I see it is the things the OP has requested (save for the matchmaking, which should be smarter) are to help newbies learn the basics and become competent quicker. Better matchmaking is in everyone's interest. As ledarsi said; the finer points of the game are hard to master and therein lies the challenge for the above average players. This balance must be maintained by creating a game with sufficient complicity to satisfy the top level players, while careful consideration must be given to making the game accessible for the fresh meat.

When you're playing a 1v1 game against a human, you don't have time to read through databases of stats and unit descriptions. This is why players generally start in either campaign, skirmish or 2v2. These are "safer" environments, more suited to learning. In order to win matches you need a good grasp of the game and usually a fair bit more than the initial strategy you intend to start the game with. Once the match starts everything is subject to change and only experience will allow players to react to changing situations and emerge victorious.

"A fool learns from his mistakes. But a truly wise man learns from the mistakes of another." Otto von Bismarck.

This is the value of replays. They give you an insight into situations that you may not have experienced first hand. Sure, watching your own replays is important - but they can only teach you what you or your opponent did right/wrong. Watching other players replays can be much more valuable - particularly for the newbie - where the secrets of the game are laid bare for those who are observant. There is no short cut to wining matches, but arming yourself with knowledge/information and surrounding yourself with the right people will inevitably reduce the time it takes you to secure your first win.

As ledarsi also stated; in order for you to win your opponent must lose. This is something that many people overlook. IMO the "everyone's a winner" culture that's in games these days just makes it harder for people to accept defeat when it happens. Sure everyone likes to win, but in any case losses can be just as valuable for those willing to learn from them and losing to a skilled opponent should not be something to be ashamed of.